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Recent Reviews by Anuj Kumar
The Hindu

Anuj Kumar is a senior film critic with The Hindu. He has written extensively on Hindi film trends, conducted interviews, and contributed nostalgia pieces. He has contributed to Housefull (Om Books), a collection of short essays on films made during the Golden Age of Hindi cinema.

Films reviewed on this Page

Loveyapa
Gandhi Godse: Ek Yudh
Emergency
Azaad
Fateh
Agni
Despatch
Sikandar Ka Muqaddar
Vijay 69
I Want to Talk

Loveyapa
Junaid Khan and Khushi Kapoor toil in this shallow rom-com

Advait Chandan’s take on the ill effects of smartphones addresses a generation that expresses its deepest emotions through emojis

Smartphone is the new villain in love stories. Screenwriters looking for new obstacles for love birds have discovered social evils on the web. After Muddassar Aziz used phone swapping to generate humour in Khel Khel Main, director Advait Chandan recycles the Tamil hit Love Today to create a romantic comedy about the ill effects of social media and artificial intelligence on relationships in Loveyapa. Baani (Khushi Kapoor) and Gaurav (Junaid Khan) feel their romance is transparent till Baani’s father Atul (Ashutosh Rana) asks them to swap their phones before they exchange vows. As the phones get unlocked, it opens Pandora’s chat box with the video libraries and vaults of phones revealing secrets that both are not ready to overlook. Written by Sneha Desai, the film makes interesting observations on how the young generation is losing touch with reality and how there is a distinct difference in their online and offline character. In this game of choices, there is no gender divide. It also touches upon the issues of online fat shaming and the emerging scourge of deepfakes.

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All 6 reviews of Loveyapa here

Gandhi Godse: Ek Yudh
A timely dialogue on the idea of India

At a time when the Hindutva ideology has seen a spike, director Rajkumar Santoshi denies Godse the pleasure of martyrdom and allows him to evolve. At the same time, he attempts to humanise and critique Gandhi in his parallel universe

At a time when history is being fictionalised, director Rajkumar Santoshi uses creative licence to bust the canards that have been allowed to fester over the years to delegitimise Mahatma Gandhi in public conscience. From being called a pawn of the Empire to faking fasts, a notion has been created that Gandhi forced the first government of independent India to release Rs 55 crore to Pakistan. The film suggests that it triggered Nathuram Godse to kill Gandhi on January 30, 1948. Santoshi revisits the events leading up to Gandhi’s assassination and then takes a leap into an imaginary space where Gandhi survives the three bullets that Godse pumped into his chest and seeks a dialogue with him.

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Emergency
Kangana Ranaut turns Indira Gandhi’s life into a lopsided listicle

Marked by uneven storytelling, the biopic comes across more as a selective recreation of archival material to serve today’s political narrative than a compelling take on the darkest chapter of Indian democracy

When Kangana Ranaut announced that she would direct Emergency, many felt it might be another weapon to whip the Congress in the election year to limit the memory of the grand old party’s rule to the 21-month blot that Indira Gandhi inflicted on democracy in 1975. After a long wait and multiple controversies, it turns out that the artist in Kangana has prevailed over the fledgling politician in her to create an ambitious biopic of the former Prime Minister, where the Emergency period is a dark chapter in her storied journey from Anand Bhawan to 1 Safdarjung Road. However, in an attempt to find the roots of dictatorial insecurities in Indira’s psyche, the writers (Kangana and Ritesh Shah) tie the screenplay into knots. The muddled gaze results in a spiritual cousin of The Accidental Prime Minister where a biopic vilifies or dilutes its subject to serve the present dispensation.

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All 8 reviews of Emergency here

Azaad
Aaman Devgan’s debut is a disappointing ride

Director Abhishek Kapoor launches Aaman Devgan and Rasha Thadani with an outworn vehicle

Betaab, Barsaat, Mirziya… Bollywood somehow loves to launch its kids on horses. Abhishek Kapoor’s Azaad is the latest addition to the list where Ajay Devgn’s nephew Aaman Devgan, and Raveena Tandon’s daughter Rasha Thadani, get a horse ride because of their pedigree.

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All 6 reviews of Azaad here

Fateh
Sonu Sood goes on a shooting spree in this stylised yet vacuous actioner

Bollywood begins 2025 with a bloody nose as Sonu Sood goes hammer and tongs to create a space for himself on the high table

Early in Fateh when a strapping Sonu Sood, dressed in a sharp black suit, enters a large room full of cocky goons, he is told that there is no space for him inside. The 120-minute bloodbath becomes a metaphor for the struggle of the sincere actor to carve a niche for himself as a solo hero. Sonu has a booming voice and a body to own the big screen. However, in a bid to flex his muscles and serve his off-screen image of a saviour (during the pandemic), Sonu, who trebles as an actor, producer, and director, has bitten more than he can chew. Cinematographer Vincenzo Condorelli and action directors Lee Whittaker and RP Yadav combine to create the right pitch for a visceral action drama. But after promising to take forward the renewed interest in the classic action genre, on the lines of Animal and Kill, the adults-only film falls into a painful pattern where the plot refuses to thicken and emotions don’t swell enough to turn the theatre into a slaughterhouse.

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All 5 reviews of Fateh here

Agni
Pratik Gandhi blazes a trail in this tale of courage under fire

Filled with warm and chilling moments, Rahul Dholakia’s social thriller provides firefighters with their moment under the sun

In Indian tradition, fire alludes to love and conflict, devotion and anger, eternality and death. The ever-youthful element that demands sacrifice plays the central character in director Rahul Dholakia’s ode to the unstinting spirit of the firefighters. Capturing a daze’s multiple faces and colours, Dholakia removes the smokescreen that covers the firefighters’ work and opens a window into the lives of those who keep us out of its fury but whose services are not duly acknowledged by the system and society. The action takes us into the heart of the evacuation process, the drama unravels the sacrifices firefighters make and the thriller elements seek to find the answer to the source of the firestorm.

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All 5 reviews of Agni here

Despatch
Tailored for Manoj Bajpayee, the searing crime drama examines the death of investigative journalism

With persuasive performances and immersive camerawork, Kanu Behl’s press procedural on journalist J Dey’s murder case cuts close to the bone

Those who have experienced Titli and Agra would vouch that Kanu Behl’s cinema is not easy to watch. Always reflecting dark shades of everyday reality, the filmmaker has this knack for scratching the soul of his desperate characters struggling to cling to their little power structures and, in the process, leaves impressions on the conscience of the audience.

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All 9 reviews of Despatch here

Sikandar Ka Muqaddar
Jimmy Shergill is on target in this ho-hum heist flick

After setting the stage for a compelling crime drama thriller, Neeraj Pandey’s film loses pace and purpose

Neeraj Pandey has a knack for plucking stories from crime pages and turning them into dramatic thrillers that carry the flavour of pulp fiction sold on stalls at railway stations. Like his much loved Special 26(2013), Sikandar Ka Muqaddar exudes energy and purpose as it lays out a puzzle for us. The title is inspired by Manmohan Desai’s crime drama Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978). Some of the leaps of faith that Neeraj takes could indeed have piqued the interest of Desai whose cine universe was rooted in Kismat (1968) and Naseeb (1981) but today they come across as nothing more than a well-meant tribute to the master.

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All 9 reviews of Sikandar Ka Muqaddar here

Vijay 69
Anupam Kher takes a dip in the channel of mediocrity

Promising to be inspiring, ‘Vijay 69’ turns out like a mildly entertaining episode in Anupam Kher’s popular play, ‘Kucch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai’

One day, a foul-mouthed man on the cusp of 70 realises that he doesn’t have any achievement in his lifelog that will keep him alive for posterity. A national-level swimmer who didn’t strive enough to change the colour of his bronze medal, Vijay Mathew (Anupam Kher) is an ordinary old man seeking a sliver of gold dust. Having lost his supportive wife to cancer, he is withering from the inside and appears grumpy from the outside. Still, he hasn’t given up on the magic of life and doesn’t want those around him to undermine his leap of faith when an opportunity presents itself. Vijay decides to participate in a tough triathlon contest to make it to record books and give something back to his friends who stood by him.

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All 5 reviews of Vijay 69 here

I Want to Talk
Abhishek Bachchan sells resilience in this self-help guide

Caught between moments of introspection and inertia, Shoojit Sircar’s human drama on the impermanence of life and relationships struggles to find its bearings

Someone who loves exploring the intricate relationship between bodily functions and life’s larger purpose, after Piku and October, director Shoojit Sircar turns to a real-life cancer survivor to tell a middling tale of resilience and reform. A hot-shot marketing man, Arjun Sen’s (Abhishek Bachchan) career comes to a sudden halt when he is diagnosed with multiple malignancies. After initial bouts of denial, he doesn’t surrender to fate, refuses to become a statistic, and enlists himself in a long-drawn battle with the disease. Soon, we discover his relationships are not in the best of health either. At work, he is a cut-throat. At home, he is divorced and has a daughter (Pearle Dey/Ahilya Bamroo) to raise who suspects him of indulging in some sort of drama to evoke empathy. In the hospital, he comes up with diagrams and googled information lest his doctor (Jayant Kriplani) take him for a ride.

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All 10 reviews of I Want to Talk here